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  • Sixty years of second language aptitude research: a systematic quantitative literature review

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    Eisenchlas522270_Published.pdf (463.6Kb)
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    Author(s)
    Chalmers, James
    Eisenchlas, Susana A
    Munro, Andrew
    Schalley, Andrea C
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Eisenchlas, Susana A.
    Munro, Andrew W.
    Year published
    2021
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    Second language (L2) aptitude has been broadly defined as the rate and ease of initially acquiring a second language. Historically, L2 aptitude has been understood as a stable trait that predetermined L2 achievement, regardless of individual learners’ efforts to acquire an L2. This traditional view of L2 aptitude as fixed and stable has led to it being a relatively neglected area of research within second language acquisition (SLA) studies. The little research that was in fact conducted was diagnostic in nature, and mostly used tests such as the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) to select potentially gifted L2 learners. ...
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    Second language (L2) aptitude has been broadly defined as the rate and ease of initially acquiring a second language. Historically, L2 aptitude has been understood as a stable trait that predetermined L2 achievement, regardless of individual learners’ efforts to acquire an L2. This traditional view of L2 aptitude as fixed and stable has led to it being a relatively neglected area of research within second language acquisition (SLA) studies. The little research that was in fact conducted was diagnostic in nature, and mostly used tests such as the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) to select potentially gifted L2 learners. Given that six decades have passed since the publication of the MLAT, now is a good time to revisit the literature and investigate whether L2 aptitude continues to be viewed as an individual difference of little interest to SLA research. While summative literature reviews of L2 aptitude research have been written, few systematic reviews exist. This article conducts a systematic quantitative literature review (SQLR) to provide a principled, comprehensive and reproducible synthesis of research into L2 aptitude published over the last 60 years (1959–2019). In this SQLR, close to one hundred journal articles and PhD dissertations were examined to discern generalisations and limitations in the field. This SQLR identifies a shift in the rationale for L2 aptitude testing, in which a diagnostic focus has been replaced by an explanatory perspective. Furthermore, our article points to a renewed interest in L2 aptitude research, which has come to be characterised by a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the concept and its components.
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    Journal Title
    Language and Linguistics Compass
    Volume
    15
    Issue
    11
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12440
    Copyright Statement
    © 2021 The Authors. Language and Linguistics Compass published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and repro-duction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
    Subject
    Linguistics
    Cognition
    Language studies
    Psycholinguistics (incl. speech production and comprehension)
    Second language (L2)
    Modern Language Aptitude Test
    systematic quantitative literature review (SQLR)
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/410261
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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